'The Complete Apparition is an existential comedy.
'The Apparition is only there when perceived. Many who may evoke him, mostly fail. When he arrives he has a presence. Or he is there unannounced-in boudoir, viaduct, United Nations or outback, backyard or shopping strip, by mantel-piece, on dancefloor, in the Islands, on flatbed truck-or amongst plants or creatures. Not being there for long, there’s a tear in his eye, a catch in his breath for what will be gone, almost as quickly as him.
'His fractured story embraces both of Tolstoy’s ‘ two plots: a person leaves home; a stranger comes to town.’ No wonder he sings hymn, anthem, rap, popular song, nursery rhyme, bush ballad or an odd sonnet to suggest he is here. So let him contest with the fear, our fear, of fading.'
Source : publisher's blurb
'Somehow it’s hard not to warm to a book whose acknowledgements page tells us that many of the poems about “the apparition” – the character or state that the whole lengthy work is devoted to – “have been rejected by prominent magazines and anthologies. I would like to thank them for authenticating the nature of his character. The few that did take poems I do not embarrass by naming them”. And you can see why it would be difficult to get these poems into journals. Most of them are attempts to define something indefinable and their strategy is to continuously look at the subject from different angles, different perspectives and different genres: not something that produces stand-alone works. On top of this the poems are often very rough, sometimes even doggerel though – I’ll look at this later on – this seems to be a deliberate ploy on the author’s part, perhaps to avoid the unwanted elegances of symbolism.' (Introduction)
'Somehow it’s hard not to warm to a book whose acknowledgements page tells us that many of the poems about “the apparition” – the character or state that the whole lengthy work is devoted to – “have been rejected by prominent magazines and anthologies. I would like to thank them for authenticating the nature of his character. The few that did take poems I do not embarrass by naming them”. And you can see why it would be difficult to get these poems into journals. Most of them are attempts to define something indefinable and their strategy is to continuously look at the subject from different angles, different perspectives and different genres: not something that produces stand-alone works. On top of this the poems are often very rough, sometimes even doggerel though – I’ll look at this later on – this seems to be a deliberate ploy on the author’s part, perhaps to avoid the unwanted elegances of symbolism.' (Introduction)
